Legal constraints meant it went to Arm

Nvidia’s Project Denver was supposed to be based on x86 tech, but things took a turn thanks to legal wranglings involving Transmeta’s Tokamak technology. Instead, Nvidia had to pivot to Arm, and the rest is history.

Welcome’s AMD and Intel cooperation

Like a leather-jacketed balloon waiting to burst, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has warned that x86’s architecture is in danger of fragmentation, and he welcomes AMD and Intel working closer together to prevent this.

With plenty of big names to back them up

Intel and AMD have both announced the creation of an x86 ecosystem advisory group, which is meant to bring together technology leaders behind this computing architecture and focus on "identifying new ways to expand the x86 ecosystem by enabling compatibility across platforms, simplifying software development, and providing developers with a platform to identify architectural needs and features to create innovative and scalable solutions for the future."

8-core Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-7000 processor close but no cigar

Chinese tech magazine PC Watch has acquired the 8-core Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-7000 processor, China’s latest entry into the x86 CPU market.

Torvalds’ prophecy

The softly spoken Linux prophet, Linus Torvalds has been consulting his bones and concluded that RISC-V might fall into the same development chasm between hardware and software developers seen by Arm and x86.

Chipzilla’s first significant CPU

Intel’s first significant CPU based in x86 turns 45 today.

80 laptops, 20 OEM and 45+ TOPS NPU, fastest ever

Intel announced a bit more details about the next-generation notebook technology SoC codenamed Lunar Lake and synced it up with Microsoft’s Copilot+ announcement. Lunar Lake has new P and E cores, 1.5 times faster Battlemage graphics, 45+ TOPS NPU and an additional 60 TOPS from the GPU, advanced low power, and most importantly performance faster than Ryzen 7 8840U & Snapdragon X Elite. 

x86 has reached its limits

Oracle said that it has modified its flagship database software to work on a new category of computing chip, starting with chips from Ampere Computing.

Made with invincible and advanced Russian chips based on proven technology

Terrified that ordering invasions of other countries might prevent his country getting its paws on technology, Tsar Putin has ordered that a supercomputer be built around Russian-made Elbrus processors.

35 million ARM vs 1.6 million "other“ wafers

There is one big change that is happening in the manufacturing equipment industry and ARM used its ARMTechCon to educate us about the big change. Drew Henry, SVP of infrastructure at ARM, pointed out in its presentation that ARM silicon wafer production ends up in 35 million wafers.